edit: For Skyrim universe, no tech, recent medical advances, etc

Let me start of by posting some Krayzie Bone to get you LUBED UP for this:

with that out of the way, I'm building a mod of sorts for skyrimz yo. There will be a series of murder mo murdermurder mo.

Looking for tips on what kind of things i should focusing on for some of these murders. I haven't seen too many episodes of NCIS or dective shows. So any tips or advice you can give me would be great.

If you're still confused; things like:

What would you look for to determine cause of death?

What would you look for to determine time of death?

how long the body has been dead?

When rigermortis sets in, etc etc.

I'm pretty scared to google any of this tbh. hope you peepholes can help. thanks

Well rigor mortis sets in pretty quick (few hours) when all the ATP in the muscles have been used up and you can no longer release the coupling mechanism between myosin and actin. Hence your muscles are locked in contraction as a default.... This lasts until decomposition of enzymes eventually reverses it about a day later.

we have to keep in mind this is skyrim, so im not really sure where the line is between adding a bunch of sciency stuff and medieval level ideas about human physiology.

but are you saying that the contraction of muscles subsides after a day or so? so they go limp again?

that's very helpful info thanks

Yes... The body may still feel more stiff than a live person, but nothing like it does when every muscle is contracted

Blunt Injuries (bruising, etc), slashes, marks, coagulation of sputum (some poisons), tears, bleeding, color of the sclera (white of eyes, trauma, suffocation, etc) Also look for cyanosis for the body (indicates how long the body has been dead, is a puddle of blue that accumalates after a certain period of time on the part of the body on the ground), rigor mortis sets in about 3 hours after death and can go away (it reaches peak in 12 hours, can dissipate). Check the temperature, temperature of a dead individual can tell you how long they have been dead. If the person is "cold" they were there for long (based on ambiant temperatures of the location)

Guns account for like 60-70% of murders in the U.S. Look at where the bullet wound is (side of the head, mouth, chest, anywhere else.) If the shooter was close, there is gunpowder residue on the individual. Multiple shots are usually homicides, as a person attempting to commit suicide would likely be unconscious and/or incapacitated and not able to fire another shot. For some reason, people usually do not shoot their clothes. If people shoot themselves in the chest, sometimes they will take their shirt off/ open it.

For knives, check for defensive cuts. A person defending themselves would have cuts near or on their hands. In a suicide, the item used for death is present, in homicide it is usually not.

Drowning, dying in shallow water with clothes off is usually murder, because A) the murderer will try to make it look natural and B ) it is not natural to swim in shallow water and drown.

Poisons are hard--because they can look natural or mimic disease.

There's a lot more..tell me if you need more :c

yes can you please expound on these, it went right over my head for the most part. I'm very interested in cyanosis, also the puddle of blue.

I would like more info on all these things you mentioned, like i said, i would google them, but i dont do well with actual dead bodies and stuff. thanks for your help

I was editing and then my chrome crashed. Oh nuts

Forgot to say that if the person died in the snow or in a freezer, that rigor mortis will last a long time and keep most of the enzymes inactive that would degrade the myosin heads.

So your dead guy in the snow might have arms out like a zombie for days and days..... He might have died on his side with arms out resting on the ground, then someone stood him up against something the next day.

I did one of these for Fallout a while ago... Let me see if I can find it for some ideas

If you take a dead person and measure their temperature, reduce it by 1.5 celsius and subtract it from the body's average core temperature (37.5C) and then divide by 1.5 to get the hours a person has been dead (approximately). Clouding of the corneas is also a sign of time of death, as is purging fluid and drying tissue.

and I'm sorry, I mean *Lividity instead of Cyanosis

This one involves a living person, but you might be able to take something from it

Example mini-mission idea:

You are working in a clinic for some spare caps and your first patient comes in:

Dave Jones: 25 year old male

“I have this cut on my hand that that soon turned into a raised itchy bump within a few days. Today is day 13, and it is now a painless ulcer about 3 cm wide. The odd thing is it was all black and nasty looking in the center. I think it is infected. I am noticing a lot of swelling of the tissues and surrounding lymph glands. I tried putting neosporin/ healing powder on it but it hasn't done much for me.

I cut it thirteen days ago on the first day of harvest for my farm. I harvest Bighorn sheep’s wool and not working is really going to hurt my profits. I often get minor cuts and scraqes on the job but nothing like this. It doesn't hurt all that much but is itchy. The icing on the cake is that I have picked up a bit of a fever yesterday and have been vomiting on and off.”

Both parents living at the age of 55 and in great health; Brother died two years ago at the age of 27 from tuberculosis.

"Two of my sheep have died earlier this week that had always been perfectly healthy. Do you think it could be related? This only happened to me and none of the other workers.

I sometimes collect and consume some of the mushrooms in the fields. I have done this recently."

Very active lifestyle due to work; No NCR military history; no travel; balanced diet; drink three 12 oz. beers a night; smoke a pack of cigarettes a day; I am in a monogamous marriage with no STD’S.

The nurse advises you that he was slightly hypotensive when he arrived at the clinic.

Extra hints: The knife was relatively clean. The wound was left uncovered. It was a puncture wound. The black is necrotic flesh. The wound was cleaned.

A hint is that one test came back and revealed that it is gram positive. Anaerobic Growth test came back negative so you know it is not Clostridium.

You do a spore formation test ant it comes back positive. Then you do a motility test that comes back negative..... This should narrow it down to two possible causes.

Now what do you think is wrong with this man and more importantly, what do you treat this poor man with?

Play some L.A. Noire.

bacillus?

i played it.

We are still talking skyrim though. gunshot wounds, technology, trauma based medicine...all of which probably doesn't exist in skyrim realm. I'm not completely ignorant, but i'm trying to find ways to make this work for skyrim.

skyrim.

yes but which one? use symptoms

that will be hard since everyone was widely uneducated then...... magic?

clostrium tetani?

nope... you were on the right track with bacilli..... Which bacilli.... Only one option really fits the symptoms

C. tetani does though! It causes necrosis, is gram positive and spore positive, negative motility =(

I will keep looking

could also be anthrax I suppose though, or anthracis

yes...cutaneous anthrax.... Wool Sorter's disease. Game over.... Games not allowed on here i just learned

=(

I need more of them

guys lets keep this on topic

gracious amigos

If you are working on a mod for Skyrim, there is an entire forum for such projects.
Although this is not really the place for such graphic discussions of human anatomy/functions of death.

The forums are to be kept at a +13 level of maturity and gratuitous.